Sublime

creator of the Smithsonian Museum’s “Programs in Black Culture,” and one of the leading authorities on Black American music culture,

Tout en caressant Canem, Émile fit le récit de ces trois années loin de la citadelle. D’abord le Sénégal, où il avait été muté durant un an au lycée français de Dakar. Une incroyable expérience qui l’avait autant endurci qu’adouci. Du soleil, des couleurs, des sourires, de la misère, des vagues, des riches, des peurs, des expatriés, des tiep bou di

I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be see

a semidiasporic postcolonial indeterminate like me

The awareness gave him pause: perhaps a funny-looking mixed-race kid could exist at the center of the world, not just on its periphery.